Amsterdam may have as many interesting sights per square mile as any city on earth.

From 50-some museums, to the canals, the architecture, the flower market, the zoo … something interesting is just a few minutes walk away.

The most famous of the museums is the Rijksmuseum, which houses Rembrandt‘s The Night Watch, among hundreds of works by the Dutch masters.

And in the case of The Night Watch, you get to see it twice. Once on canvas, once in cast bronze.

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One of the upsides to being based in Europe … is how close so much of Europe is to the casual traveler.

In the United States, a 90-minute flight from Los Angeles would not be sufficient to get to Portland, Oregon.

In Europe, a 90-minute flight from the south of France, a few miles from the Mediterranean, puts you in the Netherlands, on the North Sea. In some ways, a world away.

It makes a person consider how easy it is to get to many of the more attractive/interesting destinations on the continent.

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I love this story.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, the ruler of Dubai and the UAE’s vice president, made some surprise visits to the city-state’s governmental agencies yesterday.

At one municipality office, identified by The National as the Department of Economic Development, not a soul was to be found. During working hours.

An embedded video went up with this story, showing Dubai’s ruler looking around the office, walking over to the window, picking up a book … and not finding another person in the room.

So, how did that work out for the absent office workers?

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It’s time for Americans to do themselves a favor:

Take the national anthem out of U.S. sports events.

We have plenty of good reasons to do so, and as soon as possible.

To wit:

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Far as I am concerned, first thing you do when visiting Barcelona is go to the northeast corner of the city and see how things are coming with the construction of the basilica known as the Sagrada Familia.

Yes, even before making the pilgrimage over to the city’s great earthly structure, the football club’s Camp Nou stadium.

Have a look. Does it remind you a bit of the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz?

The Sagrada Familia (sacred family) is Antoni Gaudi‘s great project, combining Gothic and Art Nouveau styles to create the most interesting church in Christendom in, lo, these many years. A church which also will be the tallest religious building in Europe, upon completion.

They’ve been at it for a while now. Since 1982, actually, and an optimistic time frame has been proposed for completion of the magnificent building — 2026. Just around the corner!

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Estacio Sants is the main train station in Barcelona.

In case you have lost track of where you have stepped off the train from, say, France … the famous local football team has a merchandise store you can hardly miss as you exit the station — one of (by my count) nine such stores in the city.

As we discovered today, the FC Barcelona store almost cannot be missed as you move around the station, and it offers a great opportunity to spend lots of money in a very short time on club paraphernalia.

For example:

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When looking back over the rise and fall of print journalism recently, I gave short shrift to one important aspect of the impact technological breakthroughs had on a significant set of newspaper workers.

Not the editors and reporters. We coasted right through this particular shake-out, in the 1970s and early 1980s. But lots of others did not, and to overlook them is to minimize the earliest staff reductions that eventually led to most journalists also being unemployed.

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After the U.S. women’s national soccer team lost a Rio 2016 shootout to Sweden, a game that ended 1-1 in regulation, goalkeeper Hope Solo was not in a diplomatic mood. She rarely is after losing, God bless her.

The Swedes got an early lead, then sat back and absorbed pressure, and when they conceded the tying goal they did not seem particularly interested in winning the game, apparently content to take their chances in the lottery that is “penalty kicks”. And they won the lottery.

Solo said the Swedes had played “like a bunch of cowards”.

Which may not have been Miss Manners levels of sweetness and light, but was at the least a fair comment. Solo called it as she saw it, as she so often does.

The U.S. Soccer Federation, however, has treated the “coward” talk with the same sort of blunt condemnation of a failed drug test, today announcing a six-month suspension for the colorful ‘keeper.

Which is a bunch of bull. (Or is that phrase poor sportsmanship, too, U.S. women’s style?)

What is astonishing is how key U.S. women’s players (past and present) seemed to be calling for some sort of punishment, though not even Julie Foudy (now a talking head who seems to disapprove of Solo’s truthy-ness) or Rio 2016 teammate Megan Rapinoe may have anticipated the draconian punishment handed down by federation president Sunil Gulati.

This is ridiculous.

Let’s recap.

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So, it’s warm in the Languedoc … let’s give the Mediterranean a try. It’s what all tourists from the northern regions of France do, in July and August, when they decamp to the southern half of the country.

We can consider that a hearty recommendation, no?

Well, we could. But that would not keep the nearest beach, so spectacular and empty in the winter and spring … from being a horrible decision, in late August.

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The BBC’s coverage of Rio 2016 came with nightly references to a particular area of the network’s website:

The “get inspired” feature.

If you watched the Olympics and decided you would like to emulate Team Great Britain’s athletes … the BBC has advice on how to get started.

I was thinking about how silly it is that the British public should be encouraged to be the next Mo Farah (or, in the States, the next Simone Biles) … when I recalled that an American Olympic champion inspired me when I was a teen.

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